


WAdvent Day 4: No Solicitors

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Advent Calendar, Christmas Caroling, Crack, M/M, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, Sussex, Watson's Woes WAdvent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21697105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: This means you.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16
Collections: Watson's Woes WAdvent 2019





	WAdvent Day 4: No Solicitors

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the December 4, 2019 WAdvent Calendar open prompt, "Love and Joy Come to You."

Caroling is cold, tiring, hungering work – and that's just the trudging from house to house part, in places with little or no snow-clearing around front doors. In the countryside the houses are further apart, and necessitate more walking than city caroling. Your feet are soon cold and wet, fingers going numb even through gloves, the swinging lantern flinging shadows over damp song-sheets in the pitch-black of winter evening as you strain to see your part. Then there's the actual singing part, as if the walk and shin-high snow isn't tiring enough, expending lungs in icy air in song, when gasping comes more naturally. Less than an hour of this leaves you longing for comfy chairs and crackling fires and hissing tea-kettles and rich fruity Christmas cake, as your life condenses to icy dark trudging on cold aching feet and drawing in breath like knives.

"Splendid job, everyone! Just smashing! Er, Beryl, you came in a little late on 'Coventry,' do watch for that won't you love?"

And then there's Gladys Pritchard.

"Stop that grumbling, all of you! This is for the glory of God, you know! He's listening!"

Every group of carolers has a Gladys Pritchard. She could be a mayor's wife, a sexton's unmarried sister, a Ladies' Auxiliary guild leader who never stops talking about the time her form sang before the King when she was 10. In another group he could just as easily be a Glennis Pritchard who turns pages for the organist or spent two days as a King's College choirboy before he was rejected. Gladys, a very large frog who came here from somewhere bigger and busier and is determined to turn this tiny Sussex pond into her personal fiefdom.

Some lovely houses down here, everyone!" Breath smoking out from her smiling mouth, Gladys nodded to one side. Perhaps three or four cottages lay along a long, twisting country lane that was mostly downs, easily 2/3 of a mile marked sparsely with twinkles of light.

A groan from the party.

"You can stop that right now! We're not giving up! Christmas comes but once a year, you know!" All this puffing out in the dragon-smoke from her mouth that kept up that bright rictus that was more snarl than smile. "Art is pain, you know that! Come along!"

It's easier to go along, honestly. Gladys whispers and tattles, and suddenly your mum's gladiolas are no longer required for church décor, and some other family has appropriated your pew, and no one touches your trifle at the picnic. So. Just a few more houses. Then the fire, chair, kettle, cake. Bloody 'Wassail' first, then real Christmas can begin.

The furthest cottage is also the darkest; no outer lights and only a faint glow from inside shuttered windows. No doubt a nice warm fire for that old beekeeper and his friend who came home from the War last year –

"Now then now then!" Gladys could have been a Major herself the way she barks. "Page 10!"

If only they _were_ wassailing – a cold biscuit and lukewarm tea were poor proof against this night weather. No green leaves here, and none of them were fair to be seen.

Gladys strode forward to the cottage's front door past the NO SOLICITORS sign, bellowing as she reached for the bell-pull. " _Love and Joy Come to You—_ "

**SPROINGGGGG**

A moment later you'll notice the spring-loaded catapult platform cunningly built into the porch. But all you can do now is watch Gladys go sailing in a graceful arc high into the icy December night. The soft wet muffled thump is far away, where the downs are six-feet-high in snow if they're an inch.

Turns out none of you are too cold, tired wet or hungry to sprint home as fast as you can, before anyone else sets off another booby-trap.

Next year, a new rule: No lights, "NO SOLICITORS" – no singing.

***

"Good show, old man. It worked like a dream."

Watson awoke from his doze before the hearth. "Hm? Oh. Yes. Well, I did learn a thing or two whilst overseas. Adapted for peacetime, of course." He sat up and took the steaming mug from his spouse's hand. "Mm. Wassail."


End file.
